SMS: Client Does Not Run New Advertisement of the Same Package and Program

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Summary

Under most circumstances, a Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) client does not re-run an advertisement for a package and program that was previously attempted. This article describes how to force clients to run an advertisement, even if the client has previously run the same package and program.

More information

By default, SMS clients do not re-run advertised programs unless the advertisement is on a recurring schedule. Because it is possible for clients to receive multiple advertisements or assignments for the same package/program, it is not recommended that the client install the same package/program more than once. For this reason, SMS uses the package/program combination to determine whether or not a package has been previously run.

However, there may be situations when you need to have certain clients re-run a previously advertised program (for example, if you advertise a program to 20 clients and only 10 clients run it successfully). In this example, if you want to force all 20 clients to run the advertisement again, add a second time-based assignment to the existing advertisement. Do not delete the first assignment; the second assignment causes the advertisement to be treated by clients as a recurring assignment.

NOTE: Event-based assignments do not support rescheduling. Recurring assignments are always run on their schedule regardless of any previously run status. This forces all 20 clients to re-run the advertisement on the second schedule. Any clients added to this collection should only run the second assignment (not both), unless both assignment times to that client are scheduled in the future. Recurring assignments are run by clients when they are received, so the client only runs the last scheduled assignment and does not run the advertisement again unless it is scheduled again.

If you want to use only the 10 clients that did not successfully run the advertisement the first time, create an additional assigned advertisement that targets the same collection. This creates two assignments from two separate advertisements. In this situation, clients run the second assignment if the previous assignment was unsuccessful and the second advertisement's schedule occurs after the previously unsuccessful attempt.

Another alternative is to create either a new package\program or a new program for the existing package, and advertise it to the client. Even if the client has successfully installed the same software previously, it runs because the package and/or program ID is now different.

References

For more information, refer to the Systems Management Server Administrators Guide and the Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit.